3.x ed.--While Playing My 15th Level Wizard Last Night, I Realized Something...

[I'm A Banana]

To find out who wrote a note, you'd probably turn to some cleric spells -- they tend to be a little better at divination. You could pay an NPC cleric in a big enough city to ask a few questions if you didn't have one yourself.

More generally, I'd agree with the posters who say that a wizard who gets to 18th level gets there by killing goblins in various ways, so that they *would* have combat spells, even if they were intentionally a pacifist.

This is mostly because of what the DMG says about NPC classes and levels. Combat is how you earn XP, so only NPC's involved in combat get XP, and the amount of "offscreen" combat isn't enough to do more than raise your level by a few, for most normal people, but there are also adventurers out there who raid other dungeons and so have higher levels.

Same way a commoner, expert, or other NPC class gets beyond level 1.

Doing a job at a constant interval of time must generate XP. Otherwise you have 8th level experts who have to go kill monsters in order to craft items or write books better, commoners need to go into dungeons so they can crow corn more skillfully, etc.

Part of what I like about the 3e NPC rules is that they suggest *exactly* that. XP is earned from combat, and an NPC who is high level has seen combat. You don't get powerful from studying in the world of D&D -- that gives you basic human proficiency, but it doesn't give you real ultimate power. You gain that by risking your life for whatever it is you do. If you are the best farmer in the world and a 20th level commoner, you have farmed in lands that goblins try to put to the torch, in lands where earth elementals may surge to the surface, in fields where evil druids hunt with dire wolves, and you go into this frontier space, and you conquer it, and you farm the heck out of it.

I really like how that relates power to danger, and how that means that even people who are simple tailors live in a dangerous world.

 

[Tewligan]

Ok, here's some helpful advice...

Capitilization of new sentences helps improve readability. It allows the eye to pick out the start of the sentence easier, as the full stops can be hidden by other characters. For myself, I also like the older tradition of two spaces after a full stop, again aiding the layout and readability of the sentence.

Duncan

I believe that you and I have different definitions of the word "helpful" with regard to this thread.

 

[Fifth Element]

Ok, here's some helpful advice...

Capitilization of new sentences helps improve readability. It allows the eye to pick out the start of the sentence easier, as the full stops can be hidden by other characters. For myself, I also like the older tradition of two spaces after a full stop, again aiding the layout and readability of the sentence.

Duncan

What does 'Ok' mean? You obviously don't mean 'OK', 'O.K.' or 'okay', which are the acceptable written forms of that particular expression.

Also, you misspelled 'capitalization'.

Pedantism wars are go!

 

[Spatula]

so i looked thru my collection of wotc and d20 books and pdf's for the kinds of non-combat/non-dungeoneering spells that i know must be out there, and came up basically with nothing.

You could have scryed on the former possessor of the note. Or risked a contact other plane. More to the point, the wizard can't do everything, and the cleric has superior mystery-solving spells (commune, divination, etc.).

 

[Phaezen]

You could have scryed on the former possessor of the note. Or risked a contact other plane. More to the point, the wizard can't do everything, and the cleric has superior mystery-solving spells (commune, divination, etc.).

Alternatively, ofcourse, you could start an investigation, spend some time in bars and other places to gather some info, check with your contacts, hire an investigtor to follow up some leads if you need to go do something elsewhere.

Phaezen

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

there ought to be an 18th level wizard out there who has never cast a spell in combat or ever been in a combat situation. there ought to be many such higher level wizards who gain experience through using their spellcasting to overcome situations, such as:

researching ancient information,
retrieving lost items,
gathering information on the planes,
understanding monster ecology,
integrating aspects of herbalism or alchemy into spells,
figuring out more effective spell components for certain spells,
crafting magical poisons,

It strikes me (without having read the rest of the thread) that a wise sage who has spent years researching things, and understanding things, would be better served by a high level expert with maxed ranks in Knowledge: Arcana, combined with Skill focus and so forth, rather than a high level spellcaster.

 

[Voadam]

The short answer is that the spells from the Players Handbook are designed primarily for adventuring PCs. It is completely reasonable for there to be other spells in the world for non combat oriented NPC mages. The open ended nature of wizard spell options also means a ton of spells beyond the PH have been created, with the OGL there is an explosion of them.

I would recommend things like Minor Magicks by Silverthorne Games for ideas in this vein RPGNow.com - Silverthorne Games - Minor Magicks

As for your original situation look in your Monte Cook Complete Book of Eldritch Might (I'm not sure if this was originally in the BoEM I or BoEM II) for object loresight:

Object Loresight
Divination
Level: Sor/Wiz 1
Components: S
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Target: One object
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes
You learn something significant about an object you touch.
Go through this list, in order, and the first bit of lore you do not know, you learn through this spell:
1. Age of object
2. Name of last creature to touch the object, if any (other than you)
3. Race of last creature to touch the object, if any (other than you)
4. Name of the object’s creator (a natural object, like a rock, was created by nature)
5. Race of the object’s creator, if any
6. Object’s purpose
7. Material(s) that makes up the object
8. Location of the object’s creation
9. Name of the most recent owner of the object, if any
10. Magical ability of the object, if any (random if more than one)
Multiple castings allow you to gain multiple bits of information.
If you know all of the above information, this spell teaches you nothing.

I've been using it for my 17th level wizard PC for years.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Two Things:

1) I think it can be wrong to expect to always have a "fix problem" spell available. If we're talking about "player skill" this is the "system mastery" skill - "I have memorized the Spell Compendium and other rulebooks. If my player character doesn't have this spell in his spell book, I still know it exists." I think this is one of the more... boring (yet still in a way satisfying) skills to be had. It's definitely something that often applies to magic. Nobody seems to expect a "Investigate Clue" skill that will tell the player everything there is to know about an item if he just rolls well enough, without having to think on how to really investigate the clues he finds.
Magic can solve every problem. (Even problems magic can't solve, see Anti-Magic fields )


2) The 3E core rules only ever suggest hard rules for giving out XP for encounters. These don't have to be combat encounters, but it seems to be a common assumption. But should this really mean the only way to learn anything is by getting in a conflict with another NPC?
In fact, the rules don't say much about NPCs earning XP - does a BBEG that manages to escape the PCs - or TPKs them - get XP for them? What does a Dragon do with XP gained for a CR -4 = PL encounter?
I think it's better to assume that there are ways to gain XP without such conflicts. But these ways might only grant you mostly NPC levels. And they definitely take more time to be gained then by adventuring, killing people and taking their stuff.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Remember, the 3e philosophy is that "These rules are how the world functions". NPCs operate the same way as PCs do. At least, that's what the 3e fans I've heard on these boards say: the rules are the world's physics.

Not true - at least not by the rules themselves. If that is actually stated somewhere I'd really like to see the cite.

What's happened is that people have misread/misinterpreted the idea that while they adventure with the PC's NPC's will earn xp in the same way as PC's do. It's the same with demographics. They see tables in the DMG that lay out how many NPC's of what classes and what levels are available in a town of size X, and even what gp value of goods can be bought and how much gold is available there altogether. What they fail to read and understand is the part where it says, "These are charts that you can use in a pinch to generate data for a community when you don't have time to do it yourself." It was NOT intended to be a universal template that dictates, "This is how the game world functions."

I much prefer the "Everything not involved in the PCs works the way I need it to work because I'm the DM and it fits the situation."

And that's as it should be even IF the rules try to tell anyone different.

 

[joethelawyer]

You could have scryed on the former possessor of the note. Or risked a contact other plane. More to the point, the wizard can't do everything, and the cleric has superior mystery-solving spells (commune, divination, etc.).

we house-ruled out the scry spell and the scry skill. the only way to scry in our 3.0 game is via a crystal ball which costs 100,000 gp to make one, and they last 5 minutes a day, and use the 1 ed dmg rules for chances of scrying with them. good idea though otherwise.